Haikai - Gamelan (1986)

The instruments called for in this work are suling, boning, jengglong, saron, panerus, gambang, kendang, kempul, and gong. The haiku structure (5:7:5) is not manifested in durations, but in the numbers of events (attack points). In his performance notes, Cage explains that each of the 8 haikai (he names them 'bonang-jengglong-silence haikai') has 17 events, each with its own length. This work is available in a realization for central Javanese gamelan (for 8 players) by Clive Wilkinson (EP 67145a).